Buddhism has a lot to offer the world, and unlike many other
religions, if you aren’t Buddhist, that’s okay with Buddhism. It’s not
here to be dogmatic, but to help people grow and develop themselves.
These are 3 Buddhist teachings that can make your life better.

1. Anitya – Impermanence.

We aren’t permanent. Nor is anything else in this world. Things
change every day. Each day, our bodies are different, our environment is
different – our whole universe is different!Celebrate the idea that our lives change every day. Accept this
constantly moving existence. When you look at it through new eyes, it’s
pretty exciting, isn’t it! Each new day brings new opportunities.

2. Dukkha – Life is suffering.

This one sounds kind of negative, doesn’t it? But it’s not just
trying to tell you that life is tough and you need to buck up, but that
attachment to people, things, and expectations is a cause of pain. Try
not to buy into the idea that you’re a broken person. Expect that your
body will decay over time and that strife will happen and you’ll be more
resilient in the face of it.

3. Anatma – Life is constantly changing.

Buddhism doesn’t assume that there is a fixed self, but rather, a
constantly changing self. Our thoughts, names, jobs, titles, and even
personalities identify us, but those things can change overtime. As
Thich Nhat Hanh says, “Thanks to impermanence, anything is possible.”Instead of trying to find yourself, focus on creating yourself.
Create the best possible self for this moment. Worry about the kind of
self you need to be for tomorrow tomorrow. Focus on the you you want to
be now.

Read more at http://higherperspective.com/2015/03/3-buddhist-teachings.html#crctShTPOmAMPzMI.99

In an address at the scene of what
became known as “Bloody Sunday,” Mr. Obama rejected the notion that race
relations have not improved since then, despite the string of police
shootings that have provoked demonstrations. “What happened in Ferguson
may not be unique,” he said, “but it’s no longer endemic. It’s no longer
sanctioned by law or custom, and before the civil rights movement, it
most surely was.” But the president also rejected the notion that racism
has been defeated. “We don’t need the Ferguson report to know that’s
not true,” he said. “We just need to open our eyes and our ears and our
hearts to know that this nation’s racial history still casts its long
shadow upon us. We know the march is not yet over; we know the race is
not yet won. We know reaching that blessed destination where we are
judged by the content of our character requires admitting as much.”

On the 50th anniversary of the march,
Obama honored the protesters by saying, “Because of what they did, the
doors of opportunity swung open not just for African-Americans, but for
every American. Women marched through those doors. Latinos marched
through those doors. Asian-Americans, gay Americans, and Americans with
disabilities came through those doors. Their endeavors gave the entire
South the chance to rise again, not by reasserting the past, but by
transcending the past.”He further noted, “We do a disservice
to the cause of justice by intimating that bias and discrimination are
immutable, or that racial division is inherent to America. If you think
nothing’s changed in the past 50 years, ask somebody who lived through
the Selma or Chicago or L.A. of the ’50s. Ask the female CEO who once
might have been assigned to the secretarial pool if nothing’s changed.
Ask your gay friend if it’s easier to be out and proud in America now
than it was 30 years ago. To deny this progress — our progress — would
be to rob us of our own agency; our responsibility to do what we can to
make America better.”

The brief was limited to defending
same-sex marriage under an “equal protection” standard, leaving
unmentioned the other constitutional argument that some challengers to
state bans have made: that marriage is a fundamental right that cannot
be closed to such couples, a “due process” argument. The government’s new filing, signed by
U.S. Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli, Jr., and other Justice
Department officials and staff lawyers, sought to persuade the Court to
embrace a constitutional test that this administration has been pressing
for some time in gay rights cases.It called for what is known as
“heightened scrutiny” — the middle level of three ascending tests for
judging claims that laws discriminate on the basis of a forbidden
personal trait. The easiest standard to meet is “rational basis,” and
the toughest is “strict scrutiny.”Under the middle level, a law that is
challenged as discriminatory can be upheld only if it serves an
“important government objective” and its terms are “substantially
related” to such a policy goal.In a series of decisions in recent
years that have added to gay rights, the Supreme Court has never
specified an explicit standard for use in the field of sexual
orientation. At times, it has seemed to adopt something like “rational
basis-plus,” but it has never given a specific definition of the test or
tests it has used.

For decades we have believed that the
most popular name for a road was “2nd.” But by my analysis, that crown
actually goes to “Park.” (Again, look to the methodology section for a
discussion of this.) Out of over a million roads in the United States,
9,640 are named “Park.” Only 8,232 are named “2nd,” or “Second.” Still,
both the Census and I agree that “2nd” is a more popular road name than
“1st.” The most convincing explanation anyone has come up with so far is
that in many towns the primary thoroughfare is “Main” street instead of
“1st” street. Because those two names split the honor, so to speak,
they tumble in the rankings. Trees, numbers, and presidents are the most
popular names for streets, which is understandable.

“God is love. These words have been
distorted over time, and few people really know what they mean. I am
mentioning these two words because a synergy exists between them; they
are synonyms. But how can I speak about something that is so profound? I
can try to make an appropriate use of words to describe what God and
love are, but the best I can do is create a field for you to experience
them in. We can try to describe what a fruit tastes like and, depending
on how good we are with words, you could even imagine what it tastes
like. But if you really want to know what the fruit tastes like, you
have to try it for yourself.”

Once
we have made the outward choice among the many paths available and have
begun a systematic practice, we often find ourselves assailed from
within by doubts and fears, by all the feelings that we have never dared
experience. Eventually, all of the dammed-up pain of a lifetime will
arise. Once we have chosen a practice, we must have the courage and the
determination to stick with it and use it in the face of all our
difficulties.